In the Japanese language, there are various modal elements, which mark speakers' subjective attitudes toward propositions. One of the most common modals is the noda predicate, which possesses the dual function of either asserting the truth of the position or relaying the speaker's desire for information sharing. Japanese Native Speakers (JNSs) use noda frequently in conversation; however, Japanese Language Learners (JLLs) often face difficulty in learning noda because of its wide variety in function and use. To determine the nature of noda use, this study examines conversational data from role-plays and a case study of two JLLs. The main aims of this thesis are 1) to review research on noda and to provide a cohesive and concise explanation of its functions and 2) to examine the use and acquisition of noda by JLLs. Following Noda's (1997) categorization, noda can be divided broadly into two types: scope and mood. Noda of scope exhibits the speaker's assertion that the proposition is true, while noda of mood marks the speaker's strong desire for information to be shared by speaker and hearer. This study proposes a framework with which to understand the functions of noda, and classifies information which is speaker-oriented (+ Speaker/- Hearer knowledge), hearer-oriented (-Speaker/+ Hearer), and shared (+ Speaker/+ Hearer). JLLs first tend to use noda with speaker-oriented information, and later acquire functions related to hearer-oriented and shared information. In the study of role-plays, JLLs with higher oral proficiency levels as rated by the ACTFL-OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) used a higher frequency of noda. Both the JLLs and JNSs used noda primarily to provide and seek explanations. The intermediate-level JLLs underused noda in providing supplemental explanations. Other uses of noda in the role-plays included emphasizing information, seeking validity, and back-channeling. The two JLLs in the case study did not notice the use of noda during conversations with the JNS, but began to use noda more frequently during practice conversations upon receiving explicit instructions on the use of noda. While the post-test did not demonstrate increased use of noda due to the limited time of this study, there are clear indications for pedagogy. First, because the functions of noda are varied and numerous, Japanese language textbooks and classrooms should not be limited in providing only the 'explanation' function of noda. Second, the frequent use of noda in Japanese conversation suggests that it should be an area of focus in oral practice. Finally, JLLs need to develop skills in both comprehension and production of noda to improve their Japanese discourse.

During last 10-20 years communication between people has changed significantly. New technologies empowered us not only to communicate faster and better, but also to create new business branches. Every day millions of digital messages and documents are sent through the global network or telecommunication systems. Everyone wants to be sure that if some disputes regarding his interest violation arise, he would be able to defend himself using electronic data or electronic documents which were made for or during the relationships with other parties. Unfortunately the litigation of these processes is not so fast as it should be. Internet as a global communication and information centre has very many problems regarding its internationality, anonymity and insecurity. The information can be accessed from everywhere and be displayed everywhere. Thus we must have the possibility to use this information in the court to prove what has happened or should have happened. Many counties and international organizations have their positions regarding the usage of electronic evidences gained from digital relationships. But still this practice is not world wide, it dose not have the unified norms which could be used despite the borders of the countries. Many countries do not have any litigation regarding usage of electronic evidences in civil cases. The main arguments for this are uncertainty of the security of electronic information, its liability, problems of identification of author... [to full text]

Magistro darbo „Paslaugų vartojimo kompetencijų plėtojimas per technologijų pamokas“ tikslas yra ištirti paslaugų vartojimo kompetencijų plėtojimą per technologijų pamokas. Šių pamokų metu mokiniai turi išmokti patys įgyti žinių, jas taikyti praktikoje; mokytojai privalo ugdyti mokinių sugebėjimus, žingeidumą bei norą savarankiškai ieškoti ir kurti. Darbe analizuojama mokslinė, dalykinė ir pedagoginė literatūra, nagrinėjamos vartotojo (moksleivio) žinios apie paslaugų vartojimo kompetencijas, atskleidžiamos paslaugų vartojimo kompetencijų plėtojimo galimybės mokant technologijų dalyko. Suformuluoti paslaugos apibrėžimą sudėtinga, bet paprastai yra iškeliama viena ar kelios paslaugų savybės, kurias autoriai laiko universaliomis. Šios paslaugų savybės yra neapčiuopiamumas, nekaupiamumas, neatskiriamumas, heterogeniškumas (nevienodumas), nepatvarumas, vartotojo dalyvavimas paslaugų teikimo procese, paslaugos teikimo ir vartojimo vienovė (vienalaikiškumas), nuosavybės nekeičiamumas. Literatūroje bene dažniausiai pasitaikanti paslaugų klasifikacija yra paslaug�� skirstymas į vartotojiškas, socialines, gamybines, bei paskirstomąsias paslaugas. Esant didelei paslaugų kiekio bei kokybės įvairovei, svarbi ir vartotojo kompetencija – tai mokėjimas orientuotis šiuolaikiniame materialiame pasaulyje, tvarkytis buitį, prisižiūrėti sveikatą, rūpintis savimi ir aplinka. Kadangi vartojimo problemos dažnai kyla būtent dėl nepakankamos vartojimo kompetencijos, todėl didelę reikšmę įgyja... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The objective of the final thesis for the Master’s Degree – Development of service use competencies at technology lessons – is to analyze the development of service use at technology lessons. During the mentioned lessons, students are expected to develop knowledge and skills themselves and to apply them in practice; teachers should develop students’ lights, intellectual curiosity and encourage them to look for knowledge from other sources. This paper analyses scientific, special and educational literature, knowledge of a consumer (student) about the competence of service use, displays the opportunities how to build the service use competencies at technology lessons. It is not easy to formulate the definition of a service, but usually one or more features of services, considered universal by the authors, are enlightened. These features of the services encompass intangibility, non-accumulativeness, integrity, heterogeneity (promiscuity), instability, user’s involvement in the service delivery process, unity of service delivery and service use (contemporaneousness), non-changeability of ownership. One of the most frequent services classifications met in literature probably is the classification of services into consumer, social, industrial and distributive services. Under conditions of a big variety of service quantities and qualities, user’s competence is also important. This means ability to get oriented in the modern material world, cope with household chores, take care of... [to full text]

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In this study, standard and non-standard isiZulu varieties are compared and contrasted. While standard isiZulu is proved to be treasured, it is not very well known or spoken among young urban and rural isiZulu speaking learners. The socio-historical development of isiZulu is examined in order to account for the dichotomy between ‘deep’ and ‘urban’ isiZulu. ‘IsiZulu esijulile’ [‘deep isiZulu’] and ‘isiZulu sasedolobheni’ [‘urban isiZulu’] are terms found useful to describe the differences. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the characteristics of standard and non-standard language in general and standard and non-standard isiZulu in particular are discussed. The empirical section of this thesis is based on a multi-method approach, that is, one hundred rural and urban learners are the participants of this study. This investigation suggests that the dichotomy between urban and rural varieties is not as stark as initially proposed (Mesthrie, 2002). / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

As Information and Communication Technology (lCT) becomes more commonplace in New Zealand classrooms, the question arises as to what teachers are making of the technology. The present study draws on the responses from some 8000 teachers to a survey repeated over four years. The survey sought information in teachers' ICT usage and skills prior to entry into a professional development programme. The study found few changes for the average teachers' use of lCT in the classroom between 1999 and 2003. Of the changes that occurred, increases in some of the personal ICT skill levels of teachers are among the most marked. This includes an increase in skills in file management, word processing, emailing, and Internet use. For the average teacher, these skills have, however, remained relatively basic. Within the classroom, these basic skills are used mainly for administration as well as planning and preparation, while some increases in skill levels was evident in the areas of Internet use for accessing lesson ideas, assessment, reading official documents, and other professional readings. There have been some increases in the use of lCT for administration, in particular for records/assessment, and writing reports for parents. Integration of lCT into classroom teaching and learning remains unchanged and at a low level during the years studied. Usage of ICT by students of the average teacher have changed little between 1999 and 2003. Important changes can be seen, however, in those teachers with a high degree of skills and usage. Growth in their level of skills is occurring, although the numbers are small. That teachers use ICT mainly for administration purposes as well as for planning and preparation, suggests ICT is currently being 'undersold' as a tool for teaching and learning. Before ICT can be fully integrated by teachers, literature cited in this report points to the need for professional development programmes to focus on pedagogical change.

Despite the wide availability of computers to teachers throughout New Zealand, and despite the strong philosophy supporting Internet use for teacher development, the actual use of Internet websites aiming to enhance teacher professional development is not high. The New Zealand website Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) was developed with the aim of connecting teachers to a wide range of materials and information. Professional development of this kind is well supported by many theorists as being able to break down teacher isolation and build a supportive teaching and learning community. Websites for teachers, such as this one, are beginning to develop on the Internet, and their availability to all teachers is of no dispute. The extent to which they are able to be easily employed by teachers as the resources they were intended is, however, a matter only a few have investigated. This research studies some of the navigation aspects of TKI and the usability issues which influence the overall use of this website. Usability tests and a questionnaire were utilised to examine the degree to which this website was usable for teachers and the extent to which there were navigation issues for its intended users. It found that use of TKI was constrained by teachers' own lack of confidence and feelings of inability, as well as several navigation issues. These issues centered on the language used in the website - particularly in the headings; the search facility; the layout of the site; and the speed of use.

This thesis has studied the attitudes of high school and college newspaper advisers and high school newspaper editors concerning their approach to language usage that would be appropriate in a student newspaper. In order to discover these attitudes, a questionnaire on language usage was sent to 225 school journalists (75 to each group) with an enclosed stamped self-addressed envelope which allowed the form to be returned. The returns netted 149 questionnaires (49 from each of the adviser groups and 51 from the editors). It was found that the school journalists were much more conservative toward acceptance of language usage than published linguistic data had suggested likely. Also it was found that the student editors were much less liberal than the two groups of advisers had suspected they would be. The three groups contradicted themselves to a certain degree in their negative reactions to certain rules of usage and their positive reactions to certain specific grammatical examples illustrating the rules of usage.

This study attempts to discover and describe patterns of variation in college students' overt attitudes toward a limited set of grammatical and lexical variables, the shibboleths of edited written American English usage. The basic instrument used in the study is a 115 item multiple choice questionnaire prepared by the researcher. Fifteen questions were designed to assess the respondents' social, economic, and demographic backgrounds, whereas the major part of the questionnaire elicited judgments about one hundred English sentences offering the choice between the attributes "good," "bad," and "I can't decide." This questionnaire was administered to 172 students in nine freshman composition classes during the spring semester of 1994 at Ball State University. The study sought to discover and describe systematic relationships between the answers to the first set of questions (extralinguistic data) and the second set of questions (linguistic data) by using various analytical methods and statistical techniques, such as correlation coefficients, chi-square tests, and multidimensional scaling.It was hypothesized that variation in subjects' overt judgments about linguistic variables would parallel the findings of numerous sociolinguistic studies about variation in linguistic production, and hence would pattern along the social and demographic characteristics of the subjects. However, although this study found considerable variation in the freshman students' judgments about the usage shibboleths, it did not find social or demographic correlates to the respondents' judgments.By investigating the nature of the variation in freshman composition students' notions about linguistic correctness, this study attempted to answer questions which have not been asked by traditional usage studies, sociolinguistics, or composition research. Moreover, this study has added support for linguists' claims that the traditional "mistakes" in usage handbooks have almost no empirical basis, even if they remain the favorites of most handbook authors and English teachers. / Department of English

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reading comprehension of deaf and hearing subjects was affected by the presence of idiomatic language in passages.The Test Of Idioms was constructed to determine the effect of idiomatic language on reading comprehension. It consisted of twelve passages. The four forms differed in the presence or absence of idiomatic language. The Test Of Idioms was evaluated by three judges. Form A and Form D were piloted to standardize the directions for administration and to assess the reliability of the instrument. The reliability for Form A was .93 and .89 for Form D.The subjects in this study were 54 students at the Indiana School for the Deaf who were prelingually, profoundly deaf and had no other handicapping conditions. The hearing subjects consisted of 91 students from the New Castle Community School System who were in grades three or four, had never been retained and had no handicapping conditions. Both deaf and hearing subjects were randomly assigned to take one of the four forms of the Test Of Idioms.The following results were obtained. The deaf subjects did not differ significantly across groups in their ability to comprehend passages with varying levels of idiomatic language. The hearing subjects did not differ significantly across groups in their ability to comprehend passages containing varying levels of idiomatic language. In addition, within groups the deaf and hearing subjects did not differ in their comprehension of passages as a function of the ability or inability to define the idioms contained in the passages.The findings of the study were interpreted to mean that when idioms are embedded in passages where sufficient contextual support is available and extraneous factors are controlled, comprehension is not impaired for deaf or hearing subjects. In addition ability to define an idiom is not an accurate predictor of comprehension ability for reading materials containing idiomatic language.